Downloading the contents and/or structure of a database or other logical data object to a tablet, phone or other mobile computing device from a remote server over a wide area network (WAN) can be a lengthy and bandwidth-intensive task. Moreover, there are times in which it may be desired to transfer or replicate data from one device to another device. However, downloading permissions, authentication information, schema and data from a remote server over a WAN can be burdensome, in terms of computational resources, time and bandwidth.